Yes, it’s another stranger story from the Roselawn Post Office. Same place, different day, different year, different story.

I walk through drifts of snow and a slushy pool of water to the entrance of the post office, and take my place in line behind a man just out of the cusp of teen- hood. As the two of us, bored and fidgety, stare at the glass case of stamps between us and the counter, a sudden click clack of heels pulses past us. It is the sound of shoes on a mission.

The black stilettos belong to a woman in her late twenties with ringlets of long auburn hair and a too- short black skirt. I immediately decide I don’t trust her. Come on, who wears stilettos in the snow?

She approaches the counter without acknowledging us and stands at the ready, holding her five letters. That’s it, I say to myself and blurt out, “There’s a line here.”

“Oh,” she stammers. “I didn’t mean to cut you off, I just need to mail these.”

“Well, you never know,” I said. Too many people cut lines with no thought for others.

A postal clerk took her letters and she left in hurry, averting her eyes from us.

The almost-man teen turned to me and said, “I like your style.”

“Thank you,” I said and added, almost confessionally, “Well, if she had been a big mean man, I don’t think I would have said anything.”

He paused, then said, “I’ve got your back.”

This man I had just met “had my back.” Now it’s not every day that a stranger takes on having your back. This was a moment to bear witness to.

I like his style too, I thought. Suddenly, I imagined us in a Postal Fairy Tale, where the big mean man comes into the post office, tries to pull a fast one on the two of us and we go postal—me calling out the bad guy, the young man punching him out while the rest of the people in the post office cheer and clap in support of our teen hero.

Before the big mean man wakes up, the two of us escape through the back door of the post office and jump onto an awaiting wooden sled with bright red runners. We vanish down the hill at supersonic speed and land with a thud in a large pile of snow that looks good enough to eat, like Reddi-wip. (Of course we land safely, this is a fairy tale.)

We struggle to get up because we’re laughing so hard, astonished at our fantastical escape.

I was fourteen years old, walking to my friend David’s house on an early July morning, when a black, slightly beaten-up Cadillac stopped in the middle of the road near where I lived. That’s strange, I thought, a car stopping right there.

Then a man wearing a black trench coat got out of the car. I remember that he was facing away from me towards his car and that he had thin hairy legs and bare feet. He paused like a statue in an unnatural way. Before I could process the all of it, he turned towards me, opened his trench coat and revealed his privates.

I was shocked. Why is that man showing me his body? I don’t want to see his body. I think I must have stood there frozen for a few moments, until he got back in his car and drove away. Not quickly, as you might imagine, but rather matter-of-factly.

I turned, and began running in horror towards my house. I passed the house with the many concrete steps, ran stupidly through the alley, which was the short cut home. There was no one around, no one to shout to: “There’s a naked man! There’s a naked man! There’s a naked man!” I didn’t think he was going to come after me and hurt me, but it was still so disturbing, so perplexing, so creepy. All these questions with no answers went through my mind. Nobody had ever told me about men who reveal themselves to girls.

I remember that encounter like it was yesterday. What I don’t remember is what happened after the incident. Was there anyone at home when I got there? Did I tell someone?

Sometimes I wonder if that man still flashes his body, still steps out of his Cadillac and shocks unsuspecting teenage girls. He’d be in his seventies now. Hopefully he has some remorse for the wrongs he has done.

I’m at a kosher restaurant trying to pay my bill, but no one’s there to take my money. Suddenly an Orthodox man comes in from the rain, shoots me a look of surprise and then shifts his eyes away. Is it because I’m not orthodox? Or is he just shy?

I say, “Hi” to him and he does not look at me or say, “Hi” back. Is there a religious rule that I’ve violated by saying hi to him?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that he should have said “hi” back, religious differences or not. We are all God’s children. It’s just common courtesy to acknowledge the person who is standing in a room alone with you.

We wait silently for the owner to come out. There is no music playing to distract us, no T.V blaring for us to stare at.

“She’s back there,” I say to him. “She’ll be out in a minute.”

He nods and looks at me. An ever-so-small smile appears on his face. The fair skin of his face has converted from pale to rose, and in this instant, I see a flash of someone I just might want to have a conversation with, someone whose life is so different than mine.

“Your food is almost ready,” the owner calls to the Orthodox man as she opens the kitchen door. This moment transports me back to 1979, when I was a teenager living for a few weeks in Tokyo, Japan.

I’m on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. The people are not talking to each other. All you hear is the swooshing sound the train makes as it passes the outside world at a dizzying speed. The tracks move and shift underneath as if they will never get used to this much adrenaline. I have never experienced this rush. It’s very exotic and foreign. I realize that America does not always have the latest and greatest and this surprises me.

Suddenly, I see a man look at me and then abruptly look away. I realize he’s looking at me because I’m unfamiliar. No one else looks like me, or talks like me. I’m a Caucasian American teenager.

He might be pondering, what is her life like being an American? I’m wondering, what is his life like being Japanese?

When I look back at him, he shifts his eyes away and does not let them shift back. I find myself studying him, now safe in the knowledge that he is finished looking at me.

When the owner of the kosher restaurant comes out of the kitchen, I pay my bill.

As I close the door and walk to my car, I can smell my warm falafel sandwich in the cold, rainy air. From inside of my car, I can see the back of the man in the restaurant.

He is chatting away with the owner, who is Orthodox. She wears a long skirt and her hair is in a scarf. I see he is comfortable with her. Maybe if we were in a different time and place, he’d want to talk to me.